


The Super Genius Caper (The "Left Turn at Albuquerque Caper" Remix)

by Syrena_of_the_lake



Category: Castle, Gargoyles (TV), Looney Tunes | Merrie Melodies, Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Gen, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-29 16:50:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12089220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syrena_of_the_lake/pseuds/Syrena_of_the_lake
Summary: As he hung suspended from an ACME branded rope, Castle's first thought was to hope it was something Carmen had stolen from the detective agency... and not one of the coyote's oft ill-fated purchases. (Seriously, did ole Wiley never read Consumer Reports? Or Amazon reviews? Or the Darwin Awards?) His second thought, as the Gargoyle's stone skin began to crack in the fading light, was to wonder how he'd ever explain this to Beckett.





	The Super Genius Caper (The "Left Turn at Albuquerque Caper" Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gray Cardinal (Gray_Cardinal)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gray_Cardinal/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Left Turn at Albuquerque Caper](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2665433) by [Gray Cardinal (Gray_Cardinal)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gray_Cardinal/pseuds/Gray%20Cardinal). 



> This began as a short "meanwhile, back at the ranch" look at what happened to Castle while Captain Gates was busy having her world turned upside down by a young man who fell out of thin air.
> 
> Then things got a little out of hand...

Bugs Bunny: "I know this defies the law of gravity, but I never studied law!"

 

Castle: "You're a pretty smart kid, you know that?"

Alexis: "Well, they say genius skips a generation."

* * *

Victoria Gates, Captain of the NYPD 12th Precinct's homicide division, needed a stronger drink.

"Young man, do not tell me you fell out of a hole in the air to tell me something I already know." Gates frowned forbiddingly at the teenager and his floating pink-screened sidekick. "Castle has been missing ever since his wedding day, and we are expending every resource to find him." She herself had even taken to frequenting the Old Haunt, Castle's bar, on the off chance the man had amnesia and wandered in the door.

"But you won't find him," the boy called Zack said earnestly. "Because Carmen Sandiego took him."

What? Gates frowned into her glass. What was Castle stocking these days, absinthe labeled as bourbon?

"To another dimension." The blonde-haired kid added helpfully.

 _What_. Gates carefully pushed the glass away.

"Four dimensions sideways," the Chief added helpfully, projecting a dizzying 3D map. Or maybe it was four-dimensional. Castle would know.

Gates pinched the bridge of her nose. Good God, what if the man's impossible theories turned out to be _right_? There'd be no living with him after this. Maybe she could issue some kind of gag order...

Of course, they had to find him first.

* * *

"Mmwggh mrr mm ngngg mff?" Castle tried to ask his captor.

"Why am I doing this?" repeated the woman's velvety voice.

 _Huh_ , thought Castle. _She actually understood me. She must have a lot of practice at this._

Her mouth quirked upwards in a half-smile. "They say a man's home is his castle. I'm just... testing a theory."

Castle worked at his gag and watched with wide eyes as the glittering blue portal shrunk and faded. Okay, so that was seriously cool. So was the fedora. And the jet-powered wings she'd strapped on for the getaway. Too bad Beckett would never let him get a pair of those. But who was he kidding? Beckett was never going to forgive him for this. Never mind it wasn't his fault. He'd disappeared on their wedding day. All these years in their slow dance towards and away from each other, they'd finally made it, and now — what? He was a pawn in some interdimensional videogame?

How did he get into these situations, anyway?

* * *

"How does Castle get into these situations?" Gates asked the air, in case it magically produced an answer like it had produced the boy now slouching on the next barstool. 

He wasn't even supposed to be in the bar, of course, ACME Detective badge notwithstanding, but apparently he wasn't supposed to be in this dimension either, so Gates decided to let it slide. She got him a sarsaparilla from behind the bar — because of course Castle's bar would be fully stocked with sarsaparilla. she half-expected to find curly straws.

"It's really not his fault," Zack said earnestly, slurping his fancy root beer. "No one can stop Carmen when she sets her mind on something. Except Ivy and me. I mean, sometimes. It's usually after the fact, though. But we always get the stolen goods back, even if we don't always get our man. Er, woman. And if we get her, we don't always keep her," he admitted. "But we've come really close!"

"Uh-huh." Gates propped her chin on her elbow. When Castle got back from... wherever... she was going to have the lab test his stores of reserve Scotch for proof. Clearly the alcohol content was far above legal standards if she was even considering believing any of this.

 _The proof is in the interdimensional portal._ The unbidden thought slipped in her mind. It sounded entirely too much like something Castle would say.

Gates only hoped he was giving Carmen Sandiego as much grief as he normally gave her.

* * *

"So are you really from San Diego?" Castle asked as soon as his gag was removed. With his customary acumen and easy acceptance of out-of-this-world phenomena, he needed no clues to identify his mysterious captor other than her dashing red fedora and secretive smile.

A smile she turned on him, full-wattage, in non-answer to his question. "You're the detective here," she said playfully. "You tell me."

Castle pretended to think about it, as if he hadn't had spirited discussions with Alexis when she was little, throwing suction-cup darts at a globe and theorizing about that very question. But it bought him time to keep working away at the knot that bound his wrists together behind his back.

"I think it's a red herring cleverly disguised as a bigger fish," said Castle.

Carmen arched an elegant eyebrow in inquiry. Her dark hair fell becomingly over her face, casting part of it in shadow.

"You wouldn't leave such a blatant clue in plain sight, so you're not from San Diego. But you wouldn't choose a name without meaning, so it must have some significance to you. And your real origins are probably closer than most people would think—" _Ah-hah,_ he thought when her one visible eye widened slightly, _I've_ _hit close to the mark there!_ "—so instead of choosing a name as far removed as possible, I think you chose a closer one, just to throw people off the scent. I'm guessing you're from San Francisco. Somewhere near the Bay, hence the trench coat."

"Not bad, detective."

Castle couldn't help but preen a little.

"But you've overlooked one little thing."

"Huh?" Castle had just enough time to look up at her shadowed face in confusion before a jolt of electricity, or something like it, fizzed up his arms and enveloped the room in a bright blue light. The last thing he heard was her voice.

"We're not in Kansas anymore."

* * *

"Let me get this straight," said Gates. If Zack had much more sarsaparilla, she'd have to cut him off. He looked like the kind of kid who would vibrate right off the stool if he had a sugar high. "Carmen Sandiego is stealing people who are imaginary in your dimension, but real in ours." She tried not to think too hard about the words coming out of her mouth.

If this all turned out to be one of Castle's little jokes, she was going to revoke the liquor license for the Old Haunt. And ban him from the precinct. Maybe even confiscate his library card.

On second thought, a bored Castle would be an even worse problem.

"Right-a-rooney," came the surprisingly loud voice from the Chief's projection. She tried not to wonder how that worked without speakers or circuits. "Our Richard Castle is the title character in a television show—"

"He must be easier to take in one hour doses," muttered Gates.

"—about crime-solving detectives! Remind you of anyone we know, Zackmeister?"

"Do you think she's after the live versions of fictional detectives?" interrupted Gates. She wished the gadget Zack kept toying with came with some kind of volume control for the Chief.

"It would make sense," said Zack slowly. "It's a game to her, you see. She'd probably like to match wits against the best detectives in literature. Oh man..." His eyes grew wide. "D'you think she's going to steal Sherlock Holmes?"

The Chief's background screen vibrated with a _blatting_ noise like a rude raspberry. "That's at least twelve dimensions to the right, Zack-attack, and the word from Z-section is that travel has to go counterclockwise. Did you know people used to call that 'widdershins'? I don't know what a widder is, but I'd hate to bang my shin on it! You know, if I had shins."

"So she'll have to go through a _lot_ of stops before she gets to 221B Baker Street," said Zack, sounding disappointed.

"That's why I'm sending Ivy ahead, just as fast as the C-5 can get her there. Sooner or later, she'll pass Carmen in the fast lane and can ambush her down the road! Metaphorically speaking, of course. Z-section says it's more like a tunnel, and we all know there's no passing inside a tunnel."

"Gentlemen!" Gates interrupted again. She pinched the bridge of her nose. "One thing at a time. Carmen's targets — are they all detectives?"

The Chief made a whirring noise followed by a _booinnggg_. "My sprockets can't say for sure. Zack-man?"

Zack shrugged. "It makes sense," he said. "But that doesn't answer the big question."

They all spoke at the same time: "Who's next?"

* * *

"Gargoyles? I love this show!" A gouged boulder slammed into the street, crushing an empty overturned police car. Castle swallowed. "Maybe as more of a spectator sport," he allowed.

Carmen pushed him gently aside as a chunk of concrete went spinning by. "Such a shame they're busy with Xanatos's men," she said. "It would have been fun trying my wings against theirs. Another time, perhaps."

"What are you after, anyway?"

She wagged a gloved finger at him. "Wrong question, detective. Remember the rules of journalism?"

"Stab your own grandmother in the back if it gets you the byline?"

Bullets whined overhead, followed by a guttural roar of pain.

"Who," corrected Carmen, "then what."

"I knew that." Castle missed Beckett. She would have smiled at his joke. She would have pretended to hide it, and might have scolded him for it, but she would have smiled. At least on the inside.

Something that looked like an olive green boulder hurtled past them and crashed into a dumpster. It whimpered, and Castle broke away from Carmen to run towards it. "It's hurt!" he called.

" _It_ is a _he_ , and he is... ow." The not-boulder unfurled a pair of bat-like wings and lurched to its feet. It — he— rubbed his head with a clawed hand and peered up at Castle. "Who are you?"

"I'm Richard Castle, and this is, uh..." Castle trailed off awkwardly.

"A friend," Carmen inserted from the shadows.

"Riiight. I'm Lexington." The Gargoyle wiggled his talons experimentally. "And I don't think I'm broken?"

"Then we should get going," Carmen said, grabbing a firm hold of Castle's arm. He hesitated. On one hand, the Gargoyle might help him escape. On the other hand, without Carmen he might never make it back to Beckett. On the _other_ other hand...

"Wait a minute." Lexington's eyes took on a suspicious glow. "I've seen you before, lady. It was one on of Broadway's TV shows. I thought those were fake!"

"It must have been reality TV," interjected Castle quickly.

"Not your most convincing argument," murmured Carmen.

Lexington rose to his full height. While that in itself was not particularly impressive, the grooves his claws left in the asphalt were enough to make Castle take a swift step back.

"You're coming with me," announced Lexington. "Whoever you two are, Goliath is going to want to meet you. And he'll ask Elisa to check you out. She's a cop, so she'll find out who you really are!"

Oddly, this made Carmen smile. "I'm looking forward to meeting her."

That couldn't be good.

* * *

"Carmen Sandiego?" Detective Elisa Maza echoed skeptically. "The TV character?"

Carmen's smile was a little forced. "Not where I'm from, detective."

"And where might that be?" Goliath asked, folding his arms and wings. Castle wanted to tell the Gargoyle not to let down his guard, but for once he kept silent. Beckett would be so proud. And maybe a little weirded out. He didn't think she liked bats.

"Farther than you think, and closer than you know," Carmen answered cryptically.  
Goliath and Elisa exchanged a look.

"Dawn approaches." Hudson's gruff voice came from the window ledge where the older Gargoyle perched. Castle didn't get tired of watching them, how their skin stretched over living muscle yet glinted like rock in patches of moonlight. They were so _alive_.

"Elisa, will you guard them while we sleep? There is much here we do not understand," Goliath rumbled.

"You got it," the dark-haired detective replied.

Castle glanced at Carmen, who seemed perfectly at ease, and his sense of foreboding grew.

"Excuse me?" he said, raising his hand.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Carmen tense. That could only be a good thing... right?

"Yes, Richard Castle?" Goliath's wings flared as he turned. As if a Gargoyle of his size needed to look any more intimidating.

"I think you should chain us up," said Castle. "Well, her more than me, but you don't know me and after all, fair's fair." He realized he was babbling, and he tried to script his words. "She's a thief, and she stole — well, _me_ ," he shrugged sheepishly, "from another dimension. I don't know what she's after here, but there must be a pattern. There's always a pattern."

"Except when Puck is involved," muttered Elisa. "He likes things random."

"Are you working with Puck?" demanded Goliath. "Is Oberon behind your magic?"  
Carmen didn't answer.

"We're getting nowhere fast, Goliath. And the sun's coming up," Elisa warned.

The Gargoyle's eyes narrowed. "Then they shall wait while we sleep. By sundown they may be more willing to talk. This once, I will forsake my accustomed post." He gripped Castle's arm firmly with one massive hand — or was it paw? — and Hudson wrapped both his arms securely around Carmen's waist.

"Hi, handsome," she said, and Castle could have sworn the craggy old Gargoyle blushed even as dawn's first rays lit the Eyrie, turning living skin to stone.

"See you tonight," Elisa said softly as the light dimmed in Goliath's eyes. She turned to Castle and Carmen, and her voice grew sharper. "You two aren't going anywhere. I'll check on you later." And then she was gone, leaving Castle alone with Carmen, each of them locked in the unyielding grasp of a stone Gargoyle.

Castle looked up and found himself returning Goliath's sightless gaze. _Oh, that's not creepy at all_ , he thought. _No prizes for guessing who would win that staring contest._

"I'm going to get some rest," declared Carmen, somehow managing to hoist her legs and drape them over Hudson's frozen arm. "I suggest you do the same." She closed her eyes.

Castle wiggled his arm experimentally. This was worse than when Beckett handcuffed him inside her car. Circulation was good, but...

"Carmen?"

No answer.

"What if I have to go to the bathroom?" he asked. He didn't really expect an answer, and he wasn't disappointed.

* * *

"I need to get in there!" Zack paced around the Old Haunt, which Gates had closed for the night as soon as her wits caught up to her.

"In where?" she asked, distracted by a text from Esposito.

_Lost Beckett. Is she with u?_

_No_ , Gates wrote back. She was relieved to see her fingers were steady despite the sudden pounding of her heart. _Check w/ Lanie._

"Out there!" Zack gesticulated wildly. The Chief's screen swooped and ducked. "Where the action is!"

The Chief's screen split into horizontal lines, fuzzed momentarily and snapped back into focus. "No can do, Zackaroo. Z-section says their thingamabob fizzed out sending Ivy so far, so fast. Until they get it repaired, you can only C-5 one stop at a time safely. If we try to send you all the way to Manhattan-G tonight, you might wind up on the Pennsylvania 6-5000!"

Gates' phone buzzed. It was Esposito.

_Already talked w Lanie. & Alexis & Martha. Nada_

"Damn," muttered Gates.

"So what can we do?" asked Zack urgently.

Gates pocketed her phone. "I have a missing detective. I need you to help me find her."

"I know Castle's missing, that's why I want to get out — wait, _her_?" Zack sputtered to a halt.

The Chief's screen zoomed in on his startled eyes and animatronically spastic eyebrows. "You've lost another one?"

Gates pursed her lips. "The fact that Carmen Sandiego is running around on an interdimensional kidnapping spree may be more your fault than mine, Chief, but let's set that aside for the moment. If you go dimension-hopping after Carmen like the Coyote chasing after the Roadrunner, you may never catch up to her. I need your help here."

"We have to at least slow Carmen down for Ivy," Zack protested.

"So send in a distraction," suggested Gates. "And trust Castle to pick up on it and do his part to keep Carmen off-balance."

"Bingo!" exclaimed Chief. "We could lock onto a nearby native remotely and C-5 them over to wreck havoc with Carmen's plans! If it's only one stop, our circuits should manage just fine. Now, the dimensions with real-fictional hot spots closest to Manhattan-G are Milwaukee-H and Grand Canyon Double-M."

Gates raised an eyebrow. "Meaning...?"

"Happy Days or Merry Melodies," translated Zack.

 _I need something stronger than sarsaparilla_ , thought Gates. "Fonzie doesn't seem qualified for this mission," she said dryly.

Zack's mouth fell open. "But I know someone who is," he said in disbelief. "Someone good at wrecking havoc. Someone with an insanely high IQ, an absurd amount of ingenuity, and significant, uh, ACME experience."

"Sounds perfect, Z-man!" The Chief's screen flashed triumphantly. "Who is this super-genius agent?"

Gates felt a flash of foreboding.

Zack swallowed. "You said it. Wile E. Coyote, super genius."

* * *

When Castle woke up, he was slumped against the Gargoyle in a somewhat compromising position, with an awful crick in his neck and an uncomfortably full bladder. Late afternoon sunlight streamed through the windows. Castle wished it were later; he could hardly wait to free his arm from Goliath's stone grasp. He glanced over at where Carmen was held prisoner by Hudson, and blinked.

Carmen was gone.

Castle tried to throw his arms up in the air, but of course one of them only jerked painfully in Goliath's unyielding grasp. "Ow. How on earth did she do that?"

"The question is usually _where_ on earth am I," Carmen's voice came from the parapet outside. Her silhouette against the sky was unmistakeable. Fedora, flowing hair, trench coat flapping in the wind.

"But how—? Nevermind." Castle rubbed his eyes with his free hand. Belatedly, he looked at her suspiciously. "What have you done with Detective Maza?"

"Nothing, yet," came the unreassuring answer. "I have a little help on the way first."

"You don't mean Xanatos!" he said, alarmed.

Carmen laughed. "No, he and I have learned to live and let crime, so to speak. I have another... friend... on the way."

"Okay, I'll bite. Who?" Castle asked warily.

"Just a munitions expert from Mars." Carmen took out a phone-sized gadget, turned a dial and projected a spinning disc of blue light.

But what came tumbling through was no Martian.

* * *

"Done," announced Zack. His Adam's apple bobbed. "For better or worse."  
Gates smirked. "Good. Now, you're with me. Chief, you'd better lie low. People around here prefer their screens a little more... passive."

* * *

The bipedal coyote proffered a business card.

Somehow, despite the Gargoyles who had been ambulatory a mere twelve hours earlier, this caught Castle off guard.

Fortunately, it seemed to throw Carmen as well.

"The name is Coyote," the canine said smoothly in a refined voice. "Wile E. Coyote. My qualifications are as follows: super genius. Would you care for a sample?"

Carmen frowned at the device in her hand.

Into the silence Castle asked, "Sample?"  
The Coyote cracked his knuckles. His scraggly brush of a tail swished jauntily. "Wonderful," he said. He licked his lips, revealing gleaming sharp teeth.

 _If they're all pointy, are they all canine teeth?_ Castle felt he should know this, but didn't feel it would be appropriate to ask.

As Carmen continued to frown at her portal-generator, the Coyote gave Castle an exaggerated wink. "I'll just get started, then."

From nowhere, he produced a block and tackle.

Castle blinked. He was pretty sure physics didn't work like that outside of cartoons. Scratch that — not even in the Gargoyles' world. Did the Coyote somehow travel with his own physical laws, like some pocket-universe?

"The first thing to do," announced the Coyote, clipping a rope to Castle's belt, "is to get you and your igneous friend down on the ground floor for easier extraction."

"Uhhh... are you sure that's a good idea?" Castle's voice rose an octave and Carmen looked sharply up from her remote.

"What are you doing?"

"I should think that would be obvious to one of your intellect, inferior though it may be to mine." The Coyote's nails clicked on the stone floor as he padded around Castle and Goliath, securing ropes and D-links seemingly at random. "We're going down." Without glancing up from his work, he added, "There is no cause for alarm. I have extensive experience rock-climbing."

Castle looked at Carmen pleadingly.  
"Actually, it's not a bad idea," she said. "I want to be out of here by the time the sun sets. Detective Maza will be much easier to abduct without her gaggle of gargoyle bodyguards."

"I'm not sure gaggle is the proper term," said the Coyote, looking up from his work. "I think it would be a pack — ah, but then you would lose the alliteration! I see the conundrum." His ears twitched backward in thought, and he absently tied his thumb (did coyotes even have thumbs? Castle didn't think so) into the next knot.

"I have a very bad feeling about this," Castle announced to no one in particular. No one in particular answered. He felt miffed that Alexis wasn't here to get the _Star Wars_ reference.

As adventures went, this one was both singularly fascinating and unexpectedly disappointing. Not only did he have no one to share it with, but thus far he had been a mere spectator! He'd been tied up, gagged or interdimensionally unconscious for most of the trip, and he was getting tired of it. It was time for some action. It was time to—

"Winch, check. Pully, check. Block, tackle and other assorted hardware, check. Remote control, check! Gad, I'm such a genius!" The Coyote pulled a little gray box from somewhere and pushed an alarmingly large red button.

Castle and his Gargoyle anchor swung into the air. "Hey!" he yelled.

"Don't bash him into the walls," warned Carmen.

"Thanks for that.."

"I wouldn't want to harm Goliath's wings. There are fewer of him flying around the multiverse than there are Castles."

"Hey!"

The Coyote scurried around, muttering to himself as Castle plus Gargoyle swung like a pendulum before gliding forward on some mysterious mechanism. Carmen walked calmly on the other side.

Castle lamented that he was neither calm nor walking under his own power. "How did he assemble all this?"

Carmen shrugged slightly. "Cartoon physics?"

"But he's not a cartoon here!" Castle hissed.

Carmen adjusted her hat to a more rakish angle. "Don't tell him that." Before Castle could ask her to clarify, they were outside on the parapet, and Carmen was straddling the battlement. "Don't worry, detective, I know you always get to the bottom of things." And she swung herself over the edge.

Her rope whizzed as she rappelled down the side of the Eyrie Building. Castle craned his head. "I can't see! Did she make it?"

"She always does," said the Coyote. "Now that we have a moment of privacy, I should mention that Captain Gates, a so-called Chief, and a boy by the name of Zack sent me to rescue you. Just follow my lead!"

Once more, Castle had no chance to pursue such an intriguing statement. This time he was too busy screaming as they hurtled over the edge of the parapet.

* * *

Zack scanned Beckett's apartment with another gadget, this one covered with little blinking lights in a semicircle around what looked like a radar screen.

"She's been C-5'd, all right." Zack's face was grim, entirely at odds with his youthful face. Gates wondered with a pang if he'd ever had a chance to be just a boy. "Beckett could be anywhere by now," he added glumly.

Gates patted the boy's shoulder. "We'll find her."

"I wish Ivy was here," he confided.  
With a flash of insight, Gates suddenly thought she knew where Beckett had gone. _I should have known she'd find a way to follow Castle into whatever mischief he's in_ , she thought. The relief was dizzying. It could still be misplaced, though. She had to be sure.

"How are you at looking for clues?" she asked.

Zack's expression brightened. "Aces!"

"None better!" came the Chief's muffled voice from the vicinity of Zack's backpack.

Gates suppressed a smile. "If I know Beckett, she'll have left us some sort of breadcrumb. Let's start looking."

* * *

Castle plummeted, supported only by Goliath's still-stone arm, the Coyote's contraption and an ACME-branded rope that Castle dearly hoped came from Carmen's ACME agency opponents and not the Coyote's bag of tricks.

"Just don't look down," called the Coyote over the rush of wind.

"Oh, I suppose if I don't look, I can't fall?" Castle shouted back.

"Precisely! It's Freleng's Fourth Law of Physics."

"That's... not a thing!" spluttered Castle.

The Coyote's bottlebrush tail twitched. "It isn't?"

"Not here it isn't!"

The Coyote peered down at the ground, which wasn't nearly far enough away anymore. "Oh dear."

Castle regretted opening his mouth. Maybe Freleng's cartoon physics would have saved them — but surely not now that the Coyote had looked down.

Castle clutched harder at Goliath's arm. Was his vision dimming, or was the sun going down? Was Goliath's stone skin cracking? Too late, he thought, watching the ground and his imminent death approach on fast-forward. _I never thought it would end like this — and I really mean that._

"I love you, Beckett!" he shouted to the wind, to the skyscraper windows flashing by, to the terrified Coyote clinging by his side, to the Gargoyles swooping in all around—

Goliath roared. His wings flared. Stone chips, rope fragments and broken D-clips flew everywhere.

He set Castle on the ground gently.  
"Ground?" asked Castle feebly.

Goliath frowned at him. "Yes. No thanks to your friend, here."

Castle was trembling too hard to correct him. "I— but he—! ...Thank you."

Police sirens whooped in the distance. Carmen was nowhere to be seen. A truck swerved to avoid the knot of Gargoyles, its horn blaring a strident BEEP BEEP.

The Coyote leapt into the air, howling.  
Lexington landed next to Castle. "What's eating him?"

" _Roadrunneritis_?" Castle answered lamely.

"What's that?"

Castle almost pitied the poor Coyote, who was trying to hide under a fallen chunk of balustrade that had come tumbling down with his contraption. "Maybe it's some form of PTSD."

The sirens grew louder, with newcomers adding to the cacophony.

"Elisa!" Castle blurted.

The Gargoyles turned as one to regard him, and the force of their combined scrutiny made Castle clear his throat and pause. Watching the cartoon, he'd never really appreciated how very _large_ they were. And solid, even when they weren't stone.

"What about Elisa?" Goliath rumbled dangerously.

Castle swallowed. "I think Carmen Sandiego wants to kidnap her."

Goliath's eyes lit up. Normally Castle would use that as a figure of speech, but they were actually glowing, full phone-screen-in-the-dark mode. "Stay here," he ordered. "We'll be back for you."

"Back from...?" but Castle answered his own question when the Gargoyles launched into the air as one. The downdraft from their wings pushed him back a step. He nearly bumped into the Coyote, who had apparently recovered from his brush with the Beep-Beep Sound of Doom.

"I'd say that went rather well." The Coyote brushed pebbles out of his fur, looking pleased with himself.

Castle had had just about enough. "How can you say that?" he exploded. "We nearly fell to our deaths! I've been hijacked from my own dimension, tied up, held prisoner by a stone Gargoyle, and then you hoisted me on a crane—"

"Technically, it was a complex system of—"

Castle shouted louder. "— and threw me off a building! A skyscraper! How can you say any of that went well?"

"We're free," the Coyote pointed out.  
His answer was so reasonable and remarkably accurate that it gave Castle pause.

Into the pause spoke Carmen. "I'm afraid that's not technically true."

* * *

At the beginning of the whole misadventure, Castle had aimed for excitement levels just short of Halloween candy sugar rush, in part to lull any watching henchmen into a false sense of security (hey, it sometimes worked at the precinct), in part to distract himself from the chunks of clawed rock flying through the air, and in part because transdimensional travel, sentient statues and being the actual object of a theft were all _way_   _cool_. In theory, so was a talking coyote. Castle was rapidly revising that theory.

"I presume Carmen called upon me for help because of my sheer, unadulterated genius," the Coyote was saying in a voice pitched to carry. Apparently Castle wasn't the only one anticipating hidden guards. The Coyote had delicately chewed through his gag some time ago, and had been expounding ever since. " _Super_ genius, technically. One must be precise about these things."

Castle wished Carmen would hurry up and return from her latest caper to re-gag (better yet, muzzle) his fellow prisoner. Or was it _objet d'arte?_

"I think she's got this," he said. "She's got us, at any rate," he muttered under his breath.

"E-bay iet-quay," muttered the Coyote under his breath. "I-ay am-ay ere-hay ootay, um..."

"Can we just skip the pig Latin?" interrupted Castle.

Miffed, the Coyote glared at him. "As I tried to tell you before, I am here to break you out, in common parlance. But I mustn't blow my cover as Carmen's vaunted ally."

"She tied you up and gagged you," Castle felt obliged to point out.

"Security check. Merely a trifle," dismissed the Coyote. "She can hardly pass up the opportunity to work with someone of my qualifications."

"Genius?" asked Castle wearily.

"Super genius."

"Of course." It occurred to Castle that Carmen might not know the Coyote was a plant. She might just want him somewhere she could keep an eye on him, somewhere out of mischief, somewhere he couldn't endanger anyone in his immediate vicinity. Like Castle, for example. _Again_.

The question was: what, if anything, did that gain them?

* * *

"Over here!" called Zack excitedly. "On the bookshelf, next to Castle's novels — I think it's a resonator!"

"Meaning...?" Gates stood back, happy to let Zack exorcise his worry through sleuthing. It wasn't just inaction bothering him, she knew; it was being separated from his sister. Not knowing where your partner was... well, Gates had seen what it had done to Beckett.

"It's like an amplifier for the C-5. Turn it on and you could jump through dozens of dimensions... wait a minute." He glared at the Chief, whose screen was hovering near Beckett's television muttering about resolution and reception. "I thought you said we could only jump sideways one dimension at a time, and that's why I couldn't get to Ivy!" he accused. "What's the deal, Chief? Why are you keeping me out of the action?"

The Chief sighed. "Ivy made me promise," he said. "She said it was too risky, and in my professional opinion, she was right."

Zack bristled. "I'm a detective, not a kid!" he yelled.

Gates begged to differ.

"You are a growing boy," huffed the Chief, "and if you keep hopping dimensions you might grow a little too much, too soon, if you get my drift." When Zack's stormy countenance failed to clear, the Chief sighed and elaborated. "The C-5 is stable, generally speaking, but the kinds of jumps Ivy's making are more like a C-11. Her body is mature enough to make the transition without chronological changes. Z section says you aren't. And I don't want you to turn thirty before your seventeenth birthday!"

"Oh," said Zack in a small voice.

Gates cleared her throat. "Now that all the cards are on the table, perhaps you can tell me where Detective Beckett is?"

The Chief winked broadly, accompanied by obligatory sound effects. "You're a detective, too. You tell me."

"Captain," corrected Gates, raising an eyebrow. Zack snickered. "But I'll play along," she allowed. "I think Beckett is with Ivy, and they're however many dimensions sideways from this one, out looking for Castle."

"Bingo!" Fireworks sprouted from the Chief's screen.

"Then they're all right?" Zack asked eagerly.

"Affirmative, Zack-attack! Not only that," the Chief looked around and lowered his voice. Gates rolled her eyes at the theatrics, but leaned closer to hear. "Not only that, but they are hot on the trail!"

"Good," said Gates. "It's about time we wrapped up this nonsense."

Zack and the Chief exchanged a look.

"It's not usually that simple," warned Zack. "Not with Carmen."

* * *

"How many dimensions are there, anyway?" asked Castle. "Like, is there one where Carmen and I are real, but the Gargoyles are still cartoons?"

"It's a simple calculation for one of my intelligence," said the Coyote, puffing out his chest. "First we estimate the number of fictional worlds. Then we calculate the permutations using a factorial of..." he trailed off into unintelligible muttering. Disconcertingly, smoke started puffing from his ears.

"Never mind," Castle said quickly. "Let's concentrate on escaping instead. We can theorize later."

But Castle's every attempt to get free was stymied, not so much by the surprisingly strong ACME rope, but by the need to divide his attention between the knots and the Coyote.

"No, I don't think you should build a robot to free us," Castle answered for the third time.

It was the Coyote's favorite plan, though. "Why not?" he pouted.

"Because the tools are over there," Castle jerked his head at the opposite end of the warehouse, "and we are over here."

The Coyote pinned his ears back. "You're just being defeatist."

Castle sighed. "Fine, give me another idea and I'll consider it."

"We could attach suction cups to our shoes and—"

"Do you have suction cups?" Castle interrupted. "Or shoes, for that matter?"  
The Coyote subsided into sullen silence, allowing Castle to pick a few loose strands out of the rope. He thought it might just give him enough slack to—

"What if I hypnotize the mice into gnawing through the ropes?" the Coyote asked hopefully, breaking Castle's concentration.

"You know hypnosis?" That at least sounded harmless enough. "Go for it, buddy."

The Coyote licked his lips. "Come hither, my little rodent friends!" he whispered. Castle didn't dare look to see if the Coyote's eyes were actually whirling. At least he wasn't saying—

"You are getting very sleepy," intoned the Coyote.

Castle wondered if this was how he'd seemed to Beckett when they'd first met. He balked at the thought. Surely not. Surely he'd been at least a little more suave, a little more sensible, or at least _sane_ , a little more...

"Genius!" whispered the Coyote. "I think they're under my spell. Do my bidding, mouse-minions, and set us free!"  
A solitary mouse squeaked and scurried behind a metal shelf. "He's gone for reinforcements," the Coyote proclaimed. "This is ACME No-Chew-Through rope, after all, but they shall have us out in no time!"

At that moment, Castle would have welcomed Carmen and her army of henchmen with open arms. If his arms weren't tied behind his back, that is.

But when Carmen showed up, it was _sans_ henchmen, _sans_ hat, and _sans_ new abductee.

"Lose something?" called Castle. He was gratified to see a flash of annoyance cross her normally controlled expression.  
Then she smiled. "I must admit, detective Castle, your friends are resourceful. I thought it would take seven or eight of you working together to best me. It was a delightful idea," she sighed almost wistfully. "Carmen Sandiego against the best detectives in all of fiction and reality. Of course, it's really my detectives who made your victory possible this game."

"Victory?" asked the Coyote.

"Game?" asked Castle. And then, " _Your_ detectives?"

"Ivy and Zack are most enterprising." Carmen straightened her hair. "They're coming along quite nicely. And yes, of course it's all a game." She arched an eyebrow. "Did you think I was playing for keeps?"

"I, uh..." Castle tugged at his collar. He abandoned that line of thought in favor of a more practical one. "Does this mean you're letting us go?"

"What?" exclaimed the Coyote. "Without a final chase sequence?"

Castle would never know if the Coyote's words were prophetic or merely coincidental — or if through some bizarre twist of physics he had actually caused the events that followed.

Whatever the cause, the Coyote got his wish. And Carmen got to test her jetpack against the Gargoyles after all.

* * *

The Gargoyles were swift, strong, clever and in their home territory. But Carmen was agile and daring in flight, dodging claws and catwalks alike as she and her pursuers performed an aerial dance above the port. Castle caught occasional glimpses through the open warehouse door. Now he _really_ wanted a jetpack.

"I hope they don't hurt her," worried a red-haired girl who suddenly appeared next to Castle. For a moment he was reminded so strongly of Alexis that the import of her presence didn't sink in. Then she turned to him and smiled. "But I'm glad you're safe, Mr. Castle. I bet it's been a wild ride."

"Wilder than my wildest dreams," he said honestly. "I'm sorry, I'm not quite clear on who you are, Miss...?"

It wasn't the redhead who answered. "Detective, actually. Some honeymoon, huh, Castle?"

"Beckett!" cried Castle. "I'm so glad you're here — I can explain. ... Well, maybe I can't, but there is an explanation! I think."

Beckett let him off the hook. "Don't worry, Castle, Ivy already explained everything."

"She did?"

Beckett smiled as she finished untying his wrists. "Yep. This is nice rope."

"ACME No-Chew-Through," Castle said absently. "I don't suppose she'd explain it to me?"

"I can!" The Coyote sprang up from his chair before the redhead had finished untying him. "You forget I am a super gee-eiiiaaooww!" He, the chair and the girl tumbled over each other, sending a series of nearby shelves cascading to the ground with a clang. The Coyote wound up at the bottom of the pile, a furry heap of wounded dignity and bandages appearing seemingly from nowhere. The girl scowled.

"All right, Ivy?" Beckett called.

"I'm going to need a good luck charm to put this one back where he belongs," Ivy said with a sigh. "But yeah, I'm fine."

Beckett steered Castle away from the wreckage. "Come on, Castle. Let's go home."

Questions tumbled through his head. _Who, how, where, when, are you mad at me, how do we explain this on a new save-the-date_ — typical hard-hitting journalistic questions. What came out was: "What about Carmen?"

A blue flash of light overhead answered his question. They watched until the portal irised shut.

"Next question," teased Beckett, nudging his elbow.

There was one thing he'd been dying to know. "How on earth did you find me?"

Beckett grinned. "I didn't. Ivy found me, took me through one of those hole-in-the-air things, and then she found you. I just tagged along for the ride. Kind of nice to have someone else do the legwork for a change."

"Wait wait wait." Castle shook his head. "You're telling me that a girl fell out of a hole in the air, said she knew where to find me, and you just — went with her?" Castle wanted to shake her. "Kate, that was incredibly reckless! That's something _I_ would do!"

"And I'm going to remind you of this conversation the next time you try to follow me somewhere you shouldn't," Beckett said pointedly.

"That's fair," Castle allowed.

They stood in front of the warehouse awkwardly. Castle wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and kiss her, but the Gargoyles were still swooping far overhead in search of Carmen, police sirens were drawing closer, and Ivy's muffled shouts and the Coyote's yips (punctuated by thumps and clangs of falling metal) were echoing from the warehouse, and—

"Just kiss her, detective."

At the sound of Carmen's voice, they both whirled around.

Beckett reached for her sidearm, but Castle stopped her. "It's okay," he said softly. "I think the game's over." He looked at Carmen for confirmation.

"All my favorite detectives together," she said. "It seems a shame to stop now. But I suppose all good things must come to an end."

Ivy emerged from the warehouse, a subdued Coyote in tow. "Giving up, Carmen?"

Carmen tipped her hat. "For now, my dear. For now." She faded back into the shadows.

Ivy raised a walkie-talkie to her mouth. "We're all ready to go home, Chief. C-5 us outta here."

A glowing portal irised into existance. Ivy approached it, Beckett close behind her and beckoning for Castle to follow.

"Wait," called Castle. "Does the edge look fuzzy to anyone else?" Or was it an event horizon, Castle wondered, like a black hole? Even as he had that comforting thought, the blue disc oscillated, its borders fluctuating like writhing snakes.

"Stop!" the Coyote cried, waving his arms frantically. "The resonance isn't stable! You'll be—"

The portal hiccuped. It was the only word Castle could think of to describe the sudden burst of purple energy that rippled outward and cascaded back inward. It hiccuped, and its borders changed.

Ivy and Beckett fell in.

Castle ran to the collapsing portal, heedless of the Coyote's shouts. Both women were somehow clinging to lip of the hole. Wind whistled past them into the vortex. "Grab my hand!" Castle shouted.

"You can't hold onto both of us!" Ivy cried. "We'd all fall!" Her red hair whipped in her face. She looked so much like Alexis. She also looked terrified.

Castle looked at Beckett helplessly.

 _It's okay_ , she mouthed.

Time slowed.

Castle could see Beckett's mouth tighten, could see her steeling herself for something stupidly self-sacrificing and heroic. And he knew he was about to let her fall, so he could save a girl he didn't know, who looked nothing like Alexis despite the red hair, who might not even be _real_ —

In the breath of a second before Castle could reach for her, Ivy slipped. She screamed.

And then a black-gloved hand caught Ivy and swung her to safety.

Beckett grapsed Castle's hand. He tried to haul her up and out, but the eddying force of the portal was too strong. He felt himself being pulled in. He locked eyes with Beckett, squeezed her hand, and abruptly went flying backwards as a claw gripped his jacket and _yanked_.  
Beckett came flying out after him.

"Oof!" cried Castle when she landed on top of him. He looked up, expecting to see one of the Gargoyles.

Instead, the Coyote posed triumphantly next to a hastily assembled machine. It resembled nothing more than a giant version of the claw-cranes that Alexis always wanted to play when she was little, the ones incapable of snagging a purple stuffed unicorn.

"You made that?" Castle stared at the Coyote.

"Of course." The Coyote patted the contraption proudly. "Child's play."

"It worked," Castle said dumbly.

"He _is_ a super genius, after all." Carmen's black-gloved hand pulled Beckett to her feet.

"Thanks," said Beckett awkwardly.

"Yeah." Ivy, her face pale but determined, stuck out her hand. "Thanks, Carmen."

"Don't mention it, detectives." Carmen shook Ivy's hand gravely. She appraised the dying portal, which was slowly shriveling in on itself. "Your C-5 seems to be in need of repair, Ivy." Before the Coyote could offer to fix it, she added quickly, "Perhaps you'd better use mine."

Castle tensed, oddly willing to spring to Carmen's defense should someone object — but no one did.

Ivy gave a shaky smile. "Yeah. Let's go home."

* * *

When the four detectives, the thief and the Coyote jumped out of the perfectly calm C-5 portal, Zack shouted in relief. The Chief bugled appropriate fanfare. Gates held up a hand to forestall any and all explanations.

"I don't want to know." She glared at Castle and the Coyote in turn, both of whom had opened their mouths. "I'm glad you're safe, but I don't want to know."

"There's no place like home," Castle murmured wryly. A thought struck him and he turned to Carmen. "Didn't you steal Dorothy's ruby slippers once?"

"Did I?" Carmen smiled.

"Aw, man, don't go giving her any more ideas!" Zack complained.

Ivy laughed. "Come on, little bro, let's go home — and let these people get on with their lives."

"I'll take the Coyote back," offered Carmen, to everyone's surprise. "It's the least I can do. Maybe between the two of us, we can fix your little C-5 problem. After all, I hate having the home field advantage."

"Hold the phone!" objected the Chief.

"Do people still say that?" Beckett whispered in Castle's ear.

The Chief was just warming to his rant. "If you think I'm going to let that —that _cartoon_ meddle in our most sophisticated equipment—"

The interdimensional interlopers were still bickering, mostly good-naturedly, when they hopped into one last portal.

Castle drew Beckett close. "Alone at last."

Gates cleared her throat. "Not quite, Mr. Castle. Before you start celebrating your reunion, there are a few concerned family members and friends we should notify. And before we can do that, we'll need to come up with some _plausible_ explanation..." She frowned and patted her pockets. "Has anyone seen my phone?"

Castle's and Beckett's phones chimed simultaneously.

"It's a text," Beckett began.

"From Carmen!" Castle finished. He looked over at Gates, chagrined. "She's using your phone."

Gates sighed. "Let's have it, then." She didn't sound surprised.

 _Remember what Shakespeare said — all's well that ends well. Thanks for the fun and better luck next time, Detectives_.

Castle read the text aloud and looked anxiously at Beckett. She was smiling — well, almost. That was a relief. With trepidation, he looked at Gates.

She stood slowly, grabbed her coat and turned to leave. "I want you both in my office first thing in the morning," she ordered. "And Castle? You owe me a new phone."

**Author's Note:**

> That's all, folks!


End file.
